


candy-coated darling

by piggy09



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25674073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: And you see the Sugar Plum Fairy says: "I can take you to a pure place. I can take you where I took all the hungry spirits that were sweet and syrupy. I can take you down a road that goes to a land of only candy, where all of our magic lives forever and ever and ever -- and all the people that you miss will be there waiting for you."(Canon divergence: the Candians agree.)
Relationships: Saccharina Frostwhip & Lazuli Rocks, Saccharina Frostwhip & Rocks Family, Saccharina Frostwhip & The Sugar Plum Fairy
Comments: 26
Kudos: 40





	candy-coated darling

**Author's Note:**

> There are some content warnings for this, but they're a lil spoilery for the fic so they're in the notes at the bottom.

0.

The sky is the color of gumdrops, and the sun looks like the center of a peanut butter cup smashed open with a fist. You are sitting on the candyfloss grass and you are polishing your breastplate. It’s prettier when it’s polished. It shines so brightly when it’s polished, like an open smiling mouth. In the glint of light off armor you can see the reflection of the Sugar Plum Fairy, screaming and infinite, moving towards you across the grass.

HELLO, she says.

“Hi!” you say back.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY, SACCHARINA?

“Sweet!” you say, and a few of her mouths crack open in smiling.

IT’S A VERY GOOD WAY TO BE, she says.

“Thank you for visiting me,” you say. You pat the grass next to you as an invitation; obligingly she whirls over, hovers a foot above the ground. Some of her eyes have squinted up with happiness, but most of her mouths are still screaming.

“How is everyone today?”

She considers this. SWEET, says one face; its black eyes stare at you, licking at your eyelashes. ALL OF YOU ARE VERY SWEET, WHEN YOU AREN’T TRYING TO BE ANYTHING ELSE.

“Of course we’re sweet,” you say, smiling back at her. “What else is there to be?”

0.

“It’s nice here, and everything,” Ruby says, “but I wish I knew what _day_ it was.”

“Why?” says Jet. “Who needs days. I mean, obviously things are prettier during the day, but—”

“They are _not_ , they’re nicer at night. Easier to sneak.”

Jet laughs, and looks sideways at you – like she’s seeking your approval, which is a new concept and a thrilling one. You have never had a sister before, and Jet – and Jet – and Ruby – and the curve of the hill towards the chocolate ocean, the way the ground races towards it like coming home—

“I think they’re both nice,” you say, and Ruby rolls her eyes at you but Jet beams. Her teeth are white and sharp.

“See?” she says. “You don’t have to be so _sour_ , Ruby. Relax!” She shoves her shoulder against Ruby’s. “Who _cares_ what day it is? Who _cares_ if it’s daytime or nighttime? It’s all about having fun, baby! That’s all you have to think about!”

“I feel like there was something else to think about, though,” Ruby says. “Damn. Wish I could—”

You suck in a breath, for courage, and then bop her nose with one finger. There is a terrifying second where her face is blank and hurt and angry, and then she blinks at you, and you see her remembering: _this is Saccharina. She’s my sister_.

The grin spreads itself over her face.

“What was _that_ for?” she says. “I’m gonna—” and she’s hurling herself towards you, wrestling you towards the ground, Jet laughing hysterically and making herself utterly useless, your sisters your sisters your sisters your sisters your sisters your sisters your sisters your sisters your

0.

sister,” Ruby says, her jaw set. Her eyes are like bruises on the skin of a plum. There is old blood crusted in her hair. There is blood crusted under your armor, and it itches at your skin whenever you move.

You are all so tired.

The Sugar Plum Fairy tilts her head to the side. “I can take you to her,” she says.

0.

She fills your cup up to the brim with powdered sugar, and then her arms stretch and extend across the tea table to fill up Lazuli’s cup – Amethar’s cup – Rococoa’s – and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s thin hands have crawled across the table and out of your mind. You pick up your teacup and pour sugar onto your tongue.

Next to you, Lazuli is stirring her tea—

(tea meant something once but you’re not quite sure what it was, tea was a word that meant something but you’re not quite sure what it was, you call it tea for a reason but you don’t—)

—and she stops, and presses fingers to her temple.

“Are you feeling sour again, Aunt Lazuli?” you say. “I have some healing – or I had some – or, um, I could ask the Sugar Plum Fairy to heal you, if you’re—”

“Don’t tell her,” Lazuli says. Her brow is furrowed. The rim of her glasses digs into her nose in a way that looks painful. (Painful?) “I – I don’t think…”

You follow Lazuli’s intent and frowning gaze down to her teacup, but there is only sugar there; there is not anything else. When you look back up at your aunt, she has licked all the sourness up and it is gone. Her eyes are a cloudless blue.

“Saccharina,” she says, and she looks at you and smiles.

0.

“Lazuli,” you say back.

“We’ve done this before,” she says. “How many times have we

0.

Caramelinda brushes your hair with her own glittering toffee hairbrush. She hums a song under her breath, and you are drowning in it blissfully: the feeling of being a daughter. The feeling of a mother brushing your hair.

“Oh, dear heart, don’t cry,” your mother says. She brushes knuckles down your cheekbone; her hand drifts down, landing on your shoulder and squeezing. You did not realize you were crying. The tears are eating away at your skin as they pour down your face.

“I’m so happy,” you say. “This is – honestly, this is the only thing I ever wanted. All I truly wanted.”

“We’re safe here,” Caramelinda says.

“We’re safe here,” you whisper back. “And we’re – we’re _we_. There’s a _we_ , we’re _family_ , I – I just feel very lucky, I suppose. Thank you for welcoming me.”

A smile slowly melts across Caramelinda’s face. Her eyes are a cloudless

brown, clear and bright. “We’re safe here,” she says, like she’s reminding herself. “This is the only thing I ever wanted.”

0.

When you beat your fists against the sky, it flakes against your hands. Blue raspberry and artificial sweetener. The wall of it stretches up and up and up forever.

0.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY, SACCHARINA?

“Sweet!” you say, and a few of her mouths crack open in smiling.

IT’S A VERY GOOD WAY TO BE, she says.

0.

Your aunt Rococoa is pacing back and forth in front of the door, jaw set, hand reaching down to touch the place on her belt where her sword could be. You aren’t the only one watching her; your family (your family) is scattered around the room, each in various stages of nerves. Your father in particular is frowning at Rococoa and cracking his knuckles thoughtfully, one by one, picking up the tension that Rococoa carries in her shoulders.

“What’s going on,” he says. “Rococoa. What is all this?”

“I don’t know,” she snaps. You make eye contact with Ruby, who raises both of her eyebrows: _sour_ , says her expression, and you have to bite your lip to keep from laughing and spoiling the mood.

“Lazuli knows,” says Rococoa. “Maybe. I don’t know. Laz? Do you know?”

“I don’t know very much at all,” mutters Lazuli. She’s flicking through a fruit leather book, brow furrowed, eyes intent on the pages. (Your aunt!) “But I’ve taken very thorough notes, and apparently someone has not yet found the time to replace them.”

Outside of the tower, something explodes: boom. You can hear the Sugar Plum Fairy wailing. You hear Jet’s cackle.

“That won’t last for much longer,” says your mother. “So what is all this? Laz – Lazuli?”

“This isn’t salvation,” Lazuli says – under her breath, almost to herself. “She isn’t saving us here. She’s—”

(the haunting chiming echo of fae magic ringing off the edges of the world)

“—trapping us here, but more than that—”

(a surprised shout – Liam? Swifty?)

(it hurts?)

(it sounds like it hurts?)

“— _resetting_ us, like a malfunctioning glyph—”

(it sounds like it hurts? it sounds like it hurts? it sounds like it hurts?)

“—so we won’t know that we were ever unha—”

(it hurts? it hurts? it hurts? it hurts? it hurts? it hurts? it hurts? it hurts?)

0.

Your family is having a picnic. Caramelinda serves Amethar a heaping plate of sugar; he touches her elbow, a soft and familiar show of gratitude. When Caramelinda hands you your plate of sugar you dare to reach out and echo the gesture – you place fingertips at the skin of her arm. The corner of her mouth curls into a smile, one that crinkles up the edges of her eyes and shows the wrinkles where she has made that smile many times before. Your eyes well up – just a little bit! – with tears. On the blanket next to you, Ruby and Jet are bickering nonsensically over some made-up game, and Amethar looks at you and rolls his eyes with good-natured weariness. You’re the older sister! That’s the joke, you’re in on the joke, you’re the adult here and your sisters (your sisters) are young and silly and utterly lovable.

The sky is the color of gumdrops, and your first spoonful of sugar crunches between your teeth.

“Settle an argument,” says Ruby, popping her chin onto your shoulder.

“I think you’re _both_ very smart and beautiful and capable,” you say loyally, and Ruby makes a face.

“Day or night?” she says. “I know it doesn’t _really_ matter, but—”

“Night’s better for sneaking!” Jet interrupts. She puts her chin on your other shoulder. “C’mon, Saccharina, you _know_ I’m right.”

“But you can see things during the daytime,” Ruby says. “If you were aiming – I mean, not that you’d be aiming for something, but if you _were_ —”

“That’s what I’m _saying_ , you’re just picking violence, we don’t even do that—”

“But the colors are very pretty during the day,” you say.

Jet pulls in a shocked breath. “You’re taking _her_ side?!” (Ruby sticks her tongue out.) “That’s not—” Jet says. “ _Ugh_ , having sisters is the _worst!_ ” She tries to leave and you reach after her

to catch her neck in your arms and give her a noogie. (You’re happy.) Amethar laughs – you see the same wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, all the places where he has laughed before. Caramelinda is fighting to look stoic.

“Girls,” she says. “Eat your lunch.”

“It’s breakfast, Mom,” says Ruby. She is looking at something off in the distance – frowning at it, her face gone flat with intention. When you turn around to look, there isn’t anything there.

0.

“It isn’t a matter of trust,” says your aunt Lazuli.

“Of course,” you say. Your mint heart is beating against your chocolate chip throat.

Lazuli frowns at you. “Not that I don’t trust you,” she says. “I do. It’s simply that – well. Your arcane powers are truly incredible, Saccharina, I mean _truly_ – that was a compliment, you’re allowed to smile, don’t worry.” (You do.) “Good. What this is about is not simply trust, but is the balance of trust and efficiency. I don’t think either of us could break down the walls of this place alone. But together—”

( _together—_ )

“Yes,” you say, eager and immediate. “Of course. Whatever you need. How can I help?”

0.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY, SACCHARINA?

“Sweet!” you say, and a few of her mouths crack open in smiling.

0.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY, SACCHARINA?

“Sweet!” you say, and a few of her mouths crack open in smiling.

0.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY, SACCHARINA?

“Sweet!” you say, and a few of her mouths crack open in smiling.

0.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY, SACCHARINA?

“Sweet!” you say, and a few of her mouths crack open

0.

—and you’re awake again, with a sudden jolt. You feel comfortable in cold, but the mountains of Candia are truly extreme; a shiver is slithering down the edges of your spine. The world around you is enormous, white and nearly silent. Ahead of you on the path you see Ruby and Amethar, huddled together conspiratorially, their elbows sparking off of each other with a familiar lack of violence. Cumulus and Theo with the rope, certainly, and of course Liam frowning at his crossbow – but Ruby and Amethar. Your father (technically) and your sister (sort of). A two person knot.

Loneliness crunches at your bones with cold teeth. You shiver.

0.

“What if we just leave her here? What if we go without her?”

“Ruby, come on. She’s your sister.”

“No she _isn’t_.”

0.

You hurl a lightning bolt at the wall of the sky and it groans to itself and it does not fall down. Shards of sky fall and stab at your shoulder blades; they are the shape and texture of a bitten-open jawbreaker. Behind the shattered sky there is only more sky.

“Keep working at it,” Lazuli calls behind you, and you claw yourself forward through the cotton candy mist of your mind and you pull up another gust of wind – the sky cracks – the sky breaks – it shatters into nothing and reveals an infinite abyss of itself. You hear the urgent scratching of Lazuli’s chalk on the ground as she draws rune after rune after rune.

There is a pit of sour anger that lives deep in your heart, and you reach down and pull it up like hot sugar to spiderweb between your fingers. You’re angry. You’re furious. You have forgotten these facts – or started to forget them – while you’ve been here, but now the fury is boiling up against the surface of your heart. You hurl it again and again at the stubbornly gumdrop-colored sky.

“It’s not working!” you scream; your voice rips your throat open.

“Keep trying!” Lazuli yells back. A bolt of blue energy stabs into the sky; part of the sky shatters off, but it doesn’t make a hole and it doesn’t make a door. You’re so angry. You’re so angry. You’re so angry. You’ve been so angry your entire life. That anger comes sizzling out of you, freezing out of you, breaking and beating and snarling out of you like an animal. The air around you burns and blisters.

You smell lavender.

“Shit,” says Lazuli, and

0.

HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY, SACCHARINA?

0.

Your breastplate is dented. It must have gotten dented before all of this – you don’t remember where and when it got dented, but the fact of it remains. You are sitting on the grass and trying to beat it back into shape when Ruby crouches down next to you.

“Hi,” she says. Nerves are zipping along her body like crackling sparks. She’s perched on the balls of her feet, bouncing slightly, clearly anxious. Her young terror makes you very tired.

“Hi, Ruby.”

“Jet likes you,” she says, the words snipping out quick and clean between her teeth. Surprise makes you slip; your breastplate chimes like a bell and then is silent.

“Oh,” you say. “Well. That’s – okay!” The idea of it unfurls in your chest and warms you, and you try to hide this fact from Ruby. You swallow the heat of it back down. “Do you like me, Ruby?”

You dare to look at her: she’s looking away from you, frowning, head tilted in consideration. “No,” she says. “Maybe. I don’t know. I think I hated you, before. Now – you aren’t trying to replace Jet, Jet’s here, she’s – I don’t know. I – I’m fucking this all up. I came over here to say that Jet likes you and Jet is basically my whole fucking heart so I’m ready to try it. Trusting you I mean. Or starting to. I don’t know if I like you yet but, you know. I’ll try. Only because Jet likes you.”

“Wow,” you say. “That’s a drastic improvement.”

Ruby’s mouth flickers into a smile before it goes again. You have layered your words with meaning – below the glossy surface is enough sarcasm to make Ruby smile. Below that sarcasm is truth again. You mean it: you’re thrilled. Jet likes you, and Ruby is going to try to; this is the closest thing to family you’ve ever known.

“Do you want to sit with me?” you try, your voice cracking at the edges from fear and yearning.

“Not yet,” Ruby says, and she stands up to leave you

0.

to leave you all alone

0.

and you could fly quickly enough to catch up, but you don’t. You place your feet carefully on the Sugar Plum Fairy’s rainbow candy road; you watch Ruby running ahead of you, like a cherry bird released into open sky. Amethar and Theo are huddled together, and Liam is drifting after them – the Sugar Plum Fairy is drifting ahead of them, and if you look too long at the blurring edges of her form your head begins to hurt. Cumulus is lagging in the back. You slow down to match his pace.

“Nervous?” you offer.

“No,” he says matter-of-factly. “I don’t get nervous. I’m only – hm. Death isn’t sweet; death isn’t really anything, it’s just death. This is sweet. I don’t know what this is.”

“Maybe it’ll be better than death?”

“I suppose that depends on what you want,” he says. You look at him and find him already looking at you, face flat, eyes bright. You lick your lips and look away from him again. Amethar and Theo are walking ahead of you. Liam is walking ahead of you. Ruby is running down the road, so far ahead that she is already gone.

0.

You are crying before Lazuli even reaches out to hold you, so when she does reach out to hold you it splits your heart in two. She pulls you close. She smells like magic.

“Welcome home, Saccharina.” Her voice is so familiar to you; the soft blue shape of her is just how you remember it. Or how you tried to – how you really tried – and anyways, of course you hold her back. It’s better than you’d ever thought it would be.

You can hear Jet and Ruby chattering frantically in a language you don’t speak, and there is a pig squealing in the distance; Theo is bickering with an old chocolate bunny, and Amethar has lifted Rococoa off the ground in a hug. Your eyes see all of this but your heart sees none of it. Your heart is all full up with loving and being loved.

0.

When the lightning bolt hits Lazuli’s back, she looks surprised. Then she doesn’t look like anything.

0.

“Settle an argument,” Ruby says, and you jump; you hadn’t heard her enter the study or approach the couch where you are buried in notes and diagrams. Your papers drop to the floor of the study before you can catch them – but quick as thought, Jet reaches out and snatches up each page. She bows deeply when she hands your papers back to you.

“Forgiven,” you tell Jet, and then: “What’s the argument?”

“Night or day?” Jet says.

“There isn’t a right answer, but there is, and it’s day,” Ruby says. She winks at you, unabashedly cartoonish.

“ _It’s night_ ,” Jet hisses.

“I don’t know,” you say. “I mean, everything’s cozier at night! The dark is peaceful, it’s – quiet.”

“ _See?_ ” Jet says.

“You can’t see anything at night!” Ruby says. She throws her hands in the air.

“You don’t need to see anything!” Jet says.

“Sometimes you don’t need to see anything,” you say, and Jet reaches out a hand without thinking. You fistbump it and she crows with delight.

“I mean—” Ruby says, and she looks away from you and through the window on the study wall. Her brow folds itself up in disarray and then, slowly, smoothes. Her eyes are a cloudless maroon.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, and she plops herself down on the couch next to you. “What’re you working on?”

“Lazuli has ideas.” You try to sound fondly exasperated, but the truth leaks out in your consonants: you are thrilled to be included. “She thinks this might be a pocket dimension, and she’s curious about the boundaries of—”

“Ah,” Jet says wisely. “Nerd shit.” She plops down next to Ruby and – despite the offhanded scorn – leans in to examine your notes. “Huh,” she says. “Holy shit, you’re really smart. You _definitely_ paid attention in class.”

“I didn’t really have a choice.” You underline something for emphasis. “Not that they taught me any of – well, it doesn’t matter now. Can’t stop Candian magic in a world created and run by Candian magic, ha ha!”

“I hate them,” Ruby says. Her voice is like a cloud: soft and boneless. She sounds like she’s testing the words out but isn’t sure whether or not she wants to buy them.

“If they followed us here,” Jet says, “we’d fucking kill ‘em.” She turns her head to look at you with her deep dark eyes. “Seriously, Saccharina, I mean it. We’d all fight for you. You aren’t alone anymore. Okay?”

You open your mouth to say _okay_ , but the word doesn’t manage to come out. It is trapped in your throat like a terrified animal. You close your mouth again and just smile at her; you like to think she understands what you mean.

0.

When you first arrive you spend a lot of time with your aunts, who are more willing to love you. You shy away from Amethar and his family; you don’t want to intrude. You take in the infinite library of Lazuli and Lapin, and you speak with Theo about the puzzling feeling of being able to let go of the weight you have spent a lifetime balancing on your shoulders. You teach Liam’s pig to fly. You’re happy – or, if not happy, at least getting there.

It’s Amethar who finds you first – not King Amethar, not anymore. Just Amethar. When silhouetted against the taffy ground and the gumdrop sky, he is somehow softer than you have ever seen him.

“Hey,” he says.

You smile at him. “Hey.”

He sighs and sits down next to you. “How’s it going? Fuck. That’s not a good – look, this whole situation is crazy. Lemme start over. How are you doing here, in the magic Sugar Plum Fairy land of eternal sunshine or whatever.”

“Good,” you say. You mostly mean it. “How are you?”

He considers you. It’s easy to forget that he’s from the same batch as the Rocks sisters – and then he studies you, Lazuli’s intelligence and Rococoa’s fortitude and Sapphria’s cunning and Citrina’s all-encompassing forgiveness of everything that intelligence and fortitude and cunning have found. And then you remember.

“Maybe we could start over?” he says. Your hands clench together in your lap. “I mean…” (an enormous gust of a sigh) “we met at a bad time. A bad time at the end of a chain of bad times at the end of a lifetime of bad times for you. I hate that. Hate that you were out there and I didn’t…”

He rubs his forehead with one hand and then looks right at you. “I guess what I’m asking is…can I get another shot at being your dad?”

You bite down on your lip as hard as you can to keep from crying; you cry anyways.

“Aw, Saccharina.” He leans towards you and then gingerly – slowly, to give you time to reconsider – opens his arms and holds you. It is the softest hug you have ever felt. His enormous palm settles at the center of your back and rubs in circles and you are crying, completely and totally; you have been saving up tears for an entire lifetime, putting them in spun-sugar bottles each time you wanted a hug from your father and he was not there to give it to you. You are crying the tears of six-year-old Saccharina and twelve-year-old Saccharina and the Saccharina of the Great Stone Candy Mountains, who watched Amethar and Ruby stand close to each other like closeness was a currency that was easy and infinite. You are completely messing up Amethar’s robe with your tears. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s it. There you go. Hell, Saccharina. I’m so sorry.”

Your breath shudders in your throat. You reach up your hands and grab onto him; you hold on tight.

0.

“Shit,” says Lazuli, and you whirl around to see the Sugar Plum Fairy floating in the air like a fistful of thrown knives. She looks as sad as she can look, which is to say she doesn’t look sad at all.

YOU CAN’T LEAVE, she says. I’M SORRY. THERE IS NO WAY OUT.

“Of course,” Lazuli says diplomatically. “But you understand that we have to test the limits.”

DO YOU? says the Sugar Plum Fairy.

“How else will we know where not to go?” Lazuli says, but the Sugar Plum Fairy is not looking at her. She is looking at you.

I MADE A PLACE FOR YOU TO BE HAPPY, she says. I WANTED ALL OF YOU TO BE TOGETHER, AND HAPPY. IS THAT SO WRONG?

You feel the jaws of something huge and cold closing on the back of your neck.

DON’T YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY, SACCHARINA?

Lazuli’s face folds up with confusion, and she darts a sharp look in your direction. Your milk-sour heart is pumping magic and fury through every single inch of you; you are pinned to the ground by the sharp needles of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s eyes. You do not spare a glance at Lazuli.

“What is she talking about,” Lazuli. “Saccharina. I need you with me—”

“Do you?”

And the infinite pits of the Sugar Plum Fairy’s eyes.

“What?” Lazuli says. “Of course I do. Of course I do, Saccharina, I’ve been waiting—”

“And if we got out?” you whisper to the Sugar Plum Fairy. “Would you still want me? Or do you only love me when you don’t have any other choice?”

“Saccharina,” Lazuli says. Her voice tastes of horror and guilt.

“Would any of you want me?” you say.

I WANT YOU, SACCHARINA, says the Sugar Plum Fairy. I WANT ALL OF YOU TOGETHER. I DON’T WANT ANY OF YOU TO HAVE TO BE ALONE IN A WORLD THAT DOES NOT LOVE YOU.

“She’s manipulating you,” Lazuli says. “Don’t listen to her, she’s – Saccharina! Look at me! You _know_ she’s—”

In a world that does not love you. In a world that does not love you. In a world that leaves you all alone, licking love out of discarded wrappers and biting it off of bones that have already been picked clean. You’ve been so hungry your entire life. You have always, always been hungry.

“ _Saccharina_ ,” Lazuli says. A bolt of energy whips from her hands and goes crashing towards the Sugar Plum Fairy; the Sugar Plum Fairy waves it away without looking at Lazuli at all. She is still looking at you. She is still looking at you. She is still looking at you. She is still looking at

0.

You follow Lazuli’s intent and frowning gaze down to her teacup, but there is only sugar there; there is not anything else. When you look back up at your aunt, she has licked all the sourness up and it is gone. Her eyes are a cloudless blue.

“Saccharina,” she says, and she looks at you and smiles. “I’m so sorry about that. I was – I felt – hm. Difficult to hold on to unpleasant feelings these days, is it not?”

“I don’t know,” you say. “I kind of like it! Being angry at everything mostly just made me tired.”

She inclines her head. “An interesting way of thinking. I’m so, so glad you’re finally here, Saccharina. I’ve wanted to speak with you for a very long time.”

“Me too,” you whisper. “I really – I really – um. That is to say. Me too.”

She taps her teacup against yours and raises it to her mouth; for a moment you swear you smell ozone, and then the sour scent of it is gone.

0.

You are running to catch up with Ruby and Jet. You can hear the hiccupping sounds of their laughter, sweet as the world. You know you are going to catch them; they know it too, but they also know it doesn’t matter. There is nothing but time and sugar here. When you catch them, you will let them go again. When they run from you, you will bring them back again. The game will go around and around forever, and it will never stop making them laugh, and their laughter will never stop making you happy.

The sight of them: two birds pressed against the wall of the sky. They run faster and faster, until you almost lose them; you kick off the ground and soar upwards, high enough that the sun almost melts you. Then you swoop down again. Ruby and Jet look over their shoulders and then look up – see you – scream in exaggerated terror. (Ruby can’t stop smiling.) You collide into them like a meteor, collapsing the three of you into a pile on the ground.

“No fair,” Ruby says through the wheeze of her laughter. “No fair, you cheated.”

“ _Cheater_ ,” Jet says; the word has no sting from her open smiling mouth. She nudges her shoulder into yours. You nudge back. You could get up; you won’t. You’re happy down here.

“Then let’s do it again,” you say. “This time I won’t cheat.”

“Promise?” Jet says. She holds out a pinky and Ruby solemnly holds out her own.

“Promise,” you say, and you link your hands with theirs.

0.

You watch Lazuli’s sightless eyes flicker pink and purple with the Sugar Plum Fairy’s magic. You feel a lot of things, and also you don’t feel anything.

IT WON’T HURT HER, says the Sugar Plum Fairy. IT WON’T HURT ANY OF THEM. DON’T WORRY. IT WILL JUST PULL THE SOURNESS OUT, AND THEN THEY WON’T REMEMBER IT WAS THERE.

“They won’t remember anything?”

THEY’LL ONLY REMEMBER THE SWEET PARTS.

Lazuli’s eyelids tremble. Her mouth opens slightly; she exhales a cloud of spun sugar.

“Would you do it to me?” you say. “Please?”

The Sugar Plum Fairy tilts a face to look at you. YOU DON’T WANT TO REMEMBER?

“No,” you say. “No. I don’t want to remember this at all. I just want…”

I KNOW, says the Sugar Plum Fairy with unimaginable tenderness. I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT.

“Good,” you say. “Good!” On the second repetition your voice cracks open like the sky. You pull in a breath. You let it go.

“Then give me what I want,” you say.

You feel the Sugar Plum Fairy’s hands cupping your skull. You close your eyes. For a second you smell sugar—

**Author's Note:**

> **[content warnings: unreality, non-consensual use of mind-altering magic]**
> 
> Hello, my candy coated darling, it's your vanilla baby  
> I've come to say I love you and I always have  
> I find it so amusing, I used to be confused and  
> Afraid that you would never love me back
> 
> I can't even remember what I was so upset for  
> Spun sugar melts in water anyway
> 
> So no more crying, dry those tears, I'll end your pain  
> Soon you'll feel the cherry syrup running through your veins  
> Heaven is a grinning face with not a trace of shame  
> Take a taste of every flavor, favor anything but plain  
> \--"Sweet," PhemieC
> 
> BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH NAMING ACOC FIC AFTER PHEMIEC LYRICS! Hope you enjoyed this one. If you're interested in a chronological list of these sections, you can find it on my Tumblr [here](https://sharkodactyl.tumblr.com/private/625367560669577216/tumblr_AZIeQBfBZJXltpP5v).
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos & comment if you enjoyed! :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Lonely Son](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25806253) by [acaciapines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaciapines/pseuds/acaciapines)




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